Do You Color?

Do you color?  I do and sometimes outside of the lines – and on purpose. 

I hand color retail merchandising plans and lease plans with colored pencils.  I have developed a technique copied from the studio of the urban planner Peter Calthorpe.  I once had the pleasure of observing three of Peter’s young planners hand coloring a land use plan – all at the same time and all on the same piece of paper.   

I use a modified version of the Calthorpe method. It takes a long time to color a plan, and it has become a form of meditation.  As I color, I think about the space, its use, connectivity, adjacencies, and relationships to the next space, to the common areas, and overall site plan.  Over hours of coloring, I see the activities experiences of humans interacting in a real place.  Along the way I etch into my brain the hard data such as the square footage of each space.  

Once I complete my colored plan I convert the space numbers, area of spaces, the retail category, and projected rents into an excel spreadsheet.  When the numbers are right, I tag the uses and categories with a color consistent with the hand-colored plan.  I find tying data to colors is a great method to trigger a connecting point that allows me to recall information quickly.  

Next, I typically make a large photocopy of the plan and cut out the colored spaces and move them around to maximize the relationship of uses, social engagement, and the economic requirements.  This is where I go outside of the defined lines of tenant spaces and cross-pollinate, filter, and distill. 

I introduce big ideas to inform the shaping of a place of meaning as opposed to a purely transactional space.  The goal is to activates the entire plan in a manner that breaks down the hard lines between individual economic units and the public areas to create a holistic human centered marketplace.   

Once I have it right or at least in my mind, I hand trace the revised plan and color it again and finally create a storybook of supporting images.  I use these tools to engage stakeholders.  If I can show them, I can engage them and if I can engage them, I can inspire them and they in turn will inspire me.